0 Responses to Last point on Equalization – for now :-)

Keep in mind thats slightly skewered logic. McGuinty, after all, has a federally subsidized and protected workforce, so if people actually have more funds, they aren’t quite so reliant on rebates.

Also, far more of Ontario is hooked up to natural gas. Oil heat is extremely rare in southern ontario, while its still the standby in New Brunswick. Those prices are lower, and it is more efficient, which makes people less reliant on electricity.

My brother lives in Newmarket and has natural gas, so the only electricity he actually gets is lights and electronics. For those he has high efficiency ones (the fridge is the highest user), so his power bill is usually around $30 a month and that stays constant all year.

That’s about the nuttiest thing I’ve ever heard. First, I’ve never heard the liberals say ANYTHING about the US, so they are hardly ‘US haters’. The vast majority of trade from NB is with the US, so it would be pretty stupid to be that.

Second, I suspect the above actually comes from a weird american since the only constitution Canada has is from 1867. Perhaps what is meant is the Charter, and there is certainly nothing in there that says that canadian resources belong to canadians, that idea is just nuts.

As for the larger question of ‘where we’d be’ without the US that’s some spurious logic. The land mass would still be there, so if there were no United States then Canada would stretch down to the land that would still belong to mexico, a country that we have far better trade relations with than the US.

And that assumes that there are no other countries to trade with. Our ‘subsidized jobs’ would pay far better if more of our trade were with Europe or asia, something that’s being discovered.

There is no monolithic thing called a country, some aspects of the US have been very good to Canada, and some have been very bad. There is no such thing as a ‘US hater’, there are plenty of people who have a dislike for many of their governments attributes (like aspects of their foreign policy for example), but that has nothing to do with the american people who have as little to do with trade decisions as canadians do.

McGuinty has about as much interest in ‘helping’ ontarians as Harris did. THe only way they staved off a deficit was bringing in a new tax which technically was against the law. Canadians have as little input into those decisions as they do as to whether they want ’12 countries’ or not. They are largely irrelevant to the process.

Yes, that’s a special kind of crazy to say that all liberals are ‘us haters’ because one woman-who was subsequently thrown out of the party, made that comment. And after the initial comments she made it clear that she was talking about american trade policy, specifically as it dealt with mad cow and softwood lumber, two cases where the US simply ignored NAFTA tribunals and told Canada to go to hell.

So that comment is quite understandable, just about every canadian I know has made some derogatory remark about the US, but of course only as it relates to us canadians.

Parrish was also a federal liberal from a completely different province, which makes it odd to make that claim. Actually, its even more crazy to say that about liberals than about conservatives. All you have to do is go to ‘howdtheyvote.ca’ and you can see that in almost every piece of legislation, tories always voted unanimously no matter the issue. However, in far more cases liberals deviated from the party line-in other words, its far harder to get liberals to all agree on something than conservatives.

That’s an interesting point though, however, I’m interested to know where the 19 billion came from-any sources on that? I thought Ontario didn’t recieve equalization funds.

“Imagine the political benefit to Dalton if he could rebate the PST on all electricity in Ontario.”

Just to clarify, the PST rebate in NB, is limited to residential meters. (I think, it is very hard to have information, on a promise during the election). For example, can landlord claim this rebate, whether as sole proprietor, or even a corporation?

“Premier Bernard Lord announced today a full rebate of the provincial portion (eight per cent) of the HST on electricity and other home-heating sources.” further, … “The Energy Action Plan … includes more than $100 million in energy-relief measures.”

Since you talk about Dalton, you know they shame NB, the only province in the country that gives a break for heavy users of electricity… Again SME suffers the burden, in NB.

——–Dalton is not off the hook, imagine if NB, like Ontario, imposed a Health Care Premium of $600 per year (based on a salary of $48k). This could pay for election promises, too bad we do not hear about these new taxes during the campaign. You think that somehow more money will flow to NB Gov coffers? Where will the new money come from (re: Energy Relief)? (let me remind you the NB population is declining). Will we see a day when NB Power actually brings money to the Gov?

—–Now the link to Equalization… if NB had a health care premium of $600 per year, would this clawback the provinces share of equlization by the exact same amount? Until we have an answer on equalization, we will keep getting Head Scratchers like rebating taxes to win votes, or eliminating Highway Tolls to win an election.

Nice post, wish more blogs had these kinds of comments on them instead of the endless ‘predictions arguments’.

Just to make some kind of answer, the health care issue isn’t part of equalization, it is part of the Canadian Health and Social Transfer, which is a different fund. It is based per capita, which means it makes no difference how much tax dollars or money each government has. Equalization amounts to about 1.4 billion, while CHST amounts to approximately 860 million (in 2002-2003).

Just to align that with the election, Graham seems to be spending money he doesn’t have, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some ‘premium’ crept in. Apart from that, I have no idea where he plans on getting the money.

So the big deal about the CHST is that as the population continues to decline, so will the CHST.

You are right about the CHST. That’s a critical point that I overlooked. We have health care costs increasing at 3-4 times the rate of GDP growth – on a declining population. In other words, the cost per person is escalating but the federal formula is a per capita one.

This will squeeze the lemon even more in coming years and increase the need for more Equalization.

And how much is the distribution rates ?Ontario is deregulated and NB isn’t,but would have been if mckenna could have arranged it.I expect you will find Ontario has a distribution fee of about 60$ besides the kilowatt hour charge,giving about 10$ a day for electricity 3 to 5 hundred dollars a month.

I can also come up with a thousand hate statements against the U.S by liberals today,and more in a week,as it continues on a daily embarrassing basis. check:http://www.voy.com/178771/

I am currently RVing in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Canada. While driving I listen to CBC radio and some private ‘talk/news’ stations.

I am amazed at the difference. The CBC is unabashadedly anti-Bush even to the anti-American line.

The talk stations are more moderate and even conservative in their positions.

As an example, the CBC station in NS had a host talking with an Inuit [sp?] lady who was obviously well educated and concerned with changing weather patterns in northern Canada. The CBC lady asked her on 5 different occasions if the ‘global warming’ from the US was the problem.

She answered in the negative each time saying that for every instance of negatives from ‘warming’ she could point to a counter positive of lower temps. The CBC lady became frustrated and asked how she could stick up for the massive destruction of the earth! The Inuit just laughed and said there was NO evidence of that in Canada that she had seen.

The private talk station had a moderator talking with candidates for Province (New Brunswick) political office. His first guest was the liberal candidate. Aside from her ending EVERY sentence on an ‘up’ tone as if defending the statement, she always “felt” her position. She never once said she “believed” anything.

When asked about the education system she said she ‘felt’ that the Province should provide funds to help the school system.

She was asked about the health care system which the mod claimed to be in disrepair. Her answer was again, she felt the Province should provide funds. The moderator pointed out that that money was tax money from the citizens and she answered that that Ottawa should provide the funds. She didn’t get the concept that Ottawa’s money was tax funds also.

We stopped at an RV park in Baddeck, NS. In chatting with the manager I suggested she visit Arizona (my state). She looked appalled and said, “No way. You have snakes, Guns and Bush down there. I asked her what was wrong with guns and she played the typical liberal card. “Guns kill people!” I said I carried a handgun almost all the time (not in Canada) and I had never killed any one. No response.

I then asked her what was wrong with Bush and she said, “Everyone knows he is crazy! He is a murderer and just wants to rule the world!”

Quote:Keep in mind that the anti-U.S. feeling you may be experiencing in Canada is the result of decades of Liberal Party bash-America public pronouncements because whether you’re talking about that Communist Trudeau, or the crook Chretien, or Chretien’s stooge Paul Martin, all three of those rascals played the anti-American card because it helped to boost their own political fortunes domestically.

Canadians have sadly been brainwashed by the Liberals (and by the NDP and their leftist brethren) into believing that in order to be a strong Canadian nationalist, one must a.) dislike, b.) oppose, c.) despise, d.) hate the United States.

During the Clinton/Gore/Reno misadministration, Canada generally loved everything that Emperor Billigula did, which is ironic since it was Clinton who is responsible for HIV and Hep-C tainted blood products being sold to Canadian blood brokers from the Arkansas prison system at a time when those products were forbidden from being sold or utilized in the U.S., but all is forgiven so far as Clinton is concerned because he was perceived as being a liberal minded sort of fella, the ‘hip’ sort of person that Canada likes to think naturally gravitates to their way of thinking.

After George W. Bush was elected, the Liberals went absolutely apesh*t because they no longer could count on having a sympathetic liberal friend (Al Gore) in Washington.

It is amazing to me that Stephen Harper managed to pull off what was an astounding upset of the Liberal monopoly on political power, even IF he is currently running with a minority government. The NDP and Jack Layton have not a prayer of forming a national government, especially with Jack’s latest aid and comfort to the terrorist enemies that the CF are facing in Afghanistan, and the Liberal Party is wallowing about like a rotten fishing trawler without a rudder, but Bill Graham is snarling the best he can to try and put an unfriendly face on the “official opposition”. As for the Bloc (Quebec), they are finding out that the Conservatives are not the evil ones that the Liberals tried to portray them as, they will never totally embrace Harper but they know that if Harper promises something, he can be depended on to keep his word, unlike the Liberal weasels they were used to dealing with.

I’m optimistic for our Canadian friends, and hopefully the voters will understand that the Conservatives are the best hope they have for a safe and prosperous future

Seems to be attracting all kinds of attention here today. I’m not sure what, if anything, this has to do with equalization. For the americans who posted, I’m not sure what they are even doing at a New Brunswick weblog.

Generalizations are always nasty creatures. Trudeau was no more ‘communist’ than Reagan was. It’s ironic because Clinton towed the free trade line, while Reagan and Bush installed more protectionist policies than any democratic president.

But we’re not here to talk about the US. I don’t think Bush is crazy, I think he’s unbelievably stupid and has no more control over the government than a puppet on the end of a string.

However, if massive violations of civil rights and war atrocities are people’s ideas of ‘prosperity’ they can keep them down south thank you.

George Bush is no more a conservative than Al Gore was, and check out “mypartytoo.com” to see what lots of republicans think of that. The US has only itself and its president to blame, after 9-11 it was impossible to find a critical voice of the US and people all over the world were wholeheartedly rooting for them. The rest, as they say, is history.

I also heard the CBC report discussed above but never heard any of the comments mentioned. Even the people at the CBC know that environmentally, Canada is about ten times worse than the US.

But this is New Brunswick, and anybody that thinks ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ have that much sway here, you’re barking up the wrong tree. This is the province where gas is regulated by the conservatives, and wouldn’t be by the liberals!

By the by, Ontario’s power isn’t deregulated, and it was Bernard Lord who was trying to sell Lepreau and changed the legislation to the road to privatization by letting NB Power buy energy on the open market.

As for the tourist, just because somebody doesn’t like guns or your president is no reason to take things personally. If an american didn’t like my Prime Minister I would quite understand, likewise, many may say they wouldn’t visit because canada allows gay marriage. I’m not going to argue that because its a person’s right. If I were in Florida and somebody said that was why he wouldn’t visit my province I’d say ‘ok’ and change the subject.

As in Canada, americans have precious little to say about what their government does, particularly at the federal level, where over half don’t even vote, and of course its the federal level that most affects Canadians. Mainers and New Brunswickers get along quite well. NB has a lot of hunting and fishing, so that you met somebody who didn’t like guns is more of a fluke than anything (however, I can understand somebody not wanting to hang around a place with lots of guns-whether people have shot others with them or not).

Harper got better media than Martin did last election. THats cuz he started acting like a good liberal and stopped saying things like he was going to get rid of corporate welfare. Thats where he lost ontario, but he stopped saying that and now he’s behaving like a good liberal and handing out tons of taxpayers cash to the corporations in ontario and quebec.

please get this straight,pleaseHow am i going wrong.?—————————————————-

An OverviewDeregulation is the term used to describe the process in which the electricity market in Ontario was opened up to competition by the provincial government. The actual opening of the market occurred on May 1, 2002, giving residents and businesses across Ontario free choice in who they wanted to be their electricity supplier.

The opening of the market officially ended the monopoly that had previously controlled the generation and retailing of electricity when Ontario Hydro had provided the majority of electricity required by the province’s consumers.

——————————————————————————–

Why was Deregulation Introduced?For more than 75 years, the electricity supply industry (generation, transmission and distribution) in Ontario was essentially a monopoly. Under this monopoly, the driving principle was to provide power to consumers at cost. However, by the mid 1990s, the cost of producing this power was rising sharply, and the debts incurred by the province’s previous power generator, Ontario Hydro were reaching alarming heights.

In reviewing methods of reducing the debt, the Ontario government opted to deregulate the electricity market, in much the same way as the natural gas and long distance telephone industries had earlier been deregulated. As a result, Bill 35, The Energy Competition Act, was passed in November 1998. The act set out the framework for deregulation of the electric power industry in Ontario and the introduction of competition, where practical, into the system.

Under Bill 35, the former monopoly of Ontario Hydro was broken up into five successor entities, (Ontario Power Generation Inc., Ontario Hydro Services Company Inc., Ontario Electricity Financial Corporation, the Independent Electricity System Operator and the Electrical Safety Authority).

The electricity market has now been deregulated in much the same way as natural gas and long distance telephone services.

The Bill also allowed for licensed electricity retailers to buy electricity from power generators and wholesalers and compete to sell electricity to customers and have it delivered through the local distribution company’s “wires”.

Reading an electricity bill requires the skill of an accountant. In Ontario, there are two commodity charges. There are also regulatory, debt retirement and delivery charges. Sometimes you wonder how small electricity price hikes — Ontario last month approved an increase of about 4.4 per cent — seem to translate into huge bill increases. But it’s confusing and you just pay the damn thing because Desperate Housewives is on.

If you could be bothered to figure it out, you’d be in for a surprise. Electricity is a bargain. If you live in Ontario, what’s killing you is the distribution charge (which is buried in the “delivery” charge on your bill). That’s the amount you pay to the local utility to deliver the juice the last few kilometres into your home. Those prices have been rising at rates that would make your gasoline retailer envious. A report just published by Tom Adams and Alfredo Bertolotti of Energy Probe explains just how thoroughly the government and the regulator botched the distribution charge file.

Energy Probe examined household electricity bills in 10 Ontario urban regions going back to 1998 (more on the significance of that date in a moment). Since then, the total bill in each region has gone up between 27 per cent (Oshawa, at the low end) to 41 per cent (Aurora). That doesn’t mean the electricity prices went up that much. Distribution charges, which account for roughly a quarter of a bill, have been the main driver. They have climbed between 67 per cent (Toronto) and 156 per cent (Aurora, again).

Enersource, the new name for the old Mississauga Hydro, is a middle-of-the-pack example. In 1998, you would have paid $11.15 a month in distribution charges, assuming you were typical user. Now, you’re paying $23.08.

You might feel better if you knew the higher fees were being used to overhaul all the wires and poles and towers that make up your local distribution network. While some work is being done, the truth is most of the increase is simply sucked into city coffers to be spent at council’s whim.

Deregulation means you pay market prices. That isn’t the case in Ontario. It was for about six months and then the tories were facing an open revolt by the populace-partly because energy wasn’t even mentioned in the election campaign.

All of the successor companies are owned by municipalities, NOT private companies, so they have just been ‘downloaded’. You have ZERO choice for your hydro, you can’t buy from somebody else, you can go ‘off the grid’ but that’s it. There is no competitors like there is with natural gas or phone service.

Thanks for showing me I was wrong.My googling dropped me into that 6 month period. Ontario was lucky to have gotten out of that scam. But one thing,for sure,there is no competition anymore,only collusion.And one example would be is the insurance companies.

Ha! Yeah, I’ve had that happen too. Google is a blessing and a curse! Amen to that, although Ontario is far from out of that scam. Keep in mind there is quite a wide variety of insurance companies, some are mutual insurance companies, owned by policy holders, but overall I tend to agree.